The FX 5500 is a slightly faster FX 5200, they share the same core and thus very same cut backs that nvidia imposed on that gpu core, being a PCI card means its also limited by the PCI bus itself and its likely saturating the bus which is why the performance uplift is less than you were expecting.

The other possibility is that your chinesium FX5500 is actually using a 128bit FX5200 core with a modded vbios, you can find this out by removing the cooler and checking the core itself, the Chinese cards tend to "re purpose" recycled GPU dies along with some creative modding.

I also have a couple of these Chinesium FX cards and one is a rebadged FX5200 128 bit, the other is a real FX5500 core, both are ....terrible but work as expected performance wise, they are not that far behind the AGP versions.

And no you wont find much different with a real one, nVidia gimped the FX5200/5500 pretty badly and you will find its a far better DX8 card due to these cut backs.

IF you truly want to see how bad these cards can get go find a 64bit FX5200 PCI ....truly terrible card a true waste of the silicon its made from.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 02:03:

The other possibility is that your chinesium FX5500 is actually using a 128bit FX5200 core with a modded vbios, you can find this out by removing the cooler and checking the core itself, the Chinese cards tend to "re purpose" recycled GPU dies along with some creative modding.

IF you truly want to see how bad these cards can get go find a 64bit FX5200 PCI ....truly terrible card a true waste of the silicon its made from.

I lifted the heatsink and... surprise! It's an FX5200:

However, the only difference is apparently 20MHz compared to the real 5500, so that shouldn't make a big difference.

About the 64-bit FX5200, I know it from experience (my Quadro NVS 280 is technically the same). However, as I said, I don't notice much difference with the 128-bit version.

So, do you think the difference in memory speed of 133MHz vs. 200MHz (being DDR is really 266MHz vs. 400MHz) has nothing to do with it?

Feanor_twh wrote on 2025-03-15, 02:54:

I lifted the heatsink and... surprise! It's an FX5200: […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 02:03:

The other possibility is that your chinesium FX5500 is actually using a 128bit FX5200 core with a modded vbios, you can find this out by removing the cooler and checking the core itself, the Chinese cards tend to "re purpose" recycled GPU dies along with some creative modding.

IF you truly want to see how bad these cards can get go find a 64bit FX5200 PCI ....truly terrible card a true waste of the silicon its made from.

I lifted the heatsink and... surprise! It's an FX5200:

The attachment WhatsApp Image 2.jpg is no longer available

However, the only difference is apparently 20MHz compared to the real 5500, so that shouldn't make a big difference.

About the 64-bit FX5200, I know it from experience (my Quadro NVS 280 is technically the same). However, as I said, I don't notice much difference with the 128-bit version.

So, do you think the difference in memory speed of 133MHz vs. 200MHz (being DDR is really 266MHz vs. 400MHz) has nothing to do with it?

I doubt the memory speed difference would make a huge difference here, the GPU die itself is the issue and that's on nvidia, they wanted a super budget card to replace the Geforce MX400/440 cards and that's exactly what the 5200/5500 are.

That said I would still take a MX440 over a 5200 any day of the week.

What games are you running?

The cards being pci is a big bottleneck, and I wouldn't expect them to perfom much differently after a certain point, regardless of what memory they use.

Matrox for instance in their last genetations of pci cards only ever used sdram, even if the equivalent agp version came with something better as standard. There simply wasn't much point.

What memory is installed on board? samsung bla-bla-bla TC5 ?
any 5ns memory is 200mhz capable
6ns memory 166mhz capable

you can overclock you card according to the memory you have

ps.
i have build my own 5200 pci version:

fast 3.6 ns memory clocked to 550mhz
5200Ultra GPU clocked to 325 Mhz

scored ~8400 3DMark 2001

Ditto on the above. I got one of these before (wish I knew what happened to it) but yeah, *usually* you're a memory overclock away for some extra performance. Mine back then had 6ns memory, I got it to 170 mhz before issues cropped up, I remember. Decent performance increase.

Otherwise, the PCI bus is a likely culprit for the lack of performance. Get an AGP card if you can, but if you can't, I've seen PCI GeForce 6200s for similar prices, at least on USA eBay. GeForce FX and Windows 98 do generally tend to get along better, though.

bertrammatrix wrote on 2025-03-15, 03:38:

What games are you running?

RTCW and Max Payne are the most demanding ones. They run but I can't play at 1024x768, I have to go down to 800x600 if I want to keep high settings on everything else.

dm- wrote on 2025-03-15, 04:44:

What memory is installed on board? samsung bla-bla-bla TC5 ? any 5ns memory is 200mhz capable 6ns memory 166mhz capable […]
Show full quote

What memory is installed on board? samsung bla-bla-bla TC5 ?
any 5ns memory is 200mhz capable
6ns memory 166mhz capable

you can overclock you card according to the memory you have

Apparently, 0.7ns. But I didn't find the max supported speed, so I'll look further.

Feanor_twh wrote on 2025-03-15, 10:40:

bertrammatrix wrote on 2025-03-15, 03:38:

What games are you running?

RTCW and Max Payne are the most demanding ones. They run but I can't play at 1024x768, I have to go down to 800x600 if I want to keep high settings on everything else.

RTCW is a 2001 game so 800x600 sounds about right on a P3 750, Itll want some thing with a bit more grunt on both CPU and GPU to run at 1024x768 with high details.

As for Max Payne . .that game was pretty demanding even on recommended hardware but with a PCi FX card .. yeah that wont be a great experience. Throw a Geforce 4 at it or a Radeon 9600 and itll be a great experience on a P3 750, the FX5500 is going to struggle with it. But 800x600 with high details isnt bad if it runs smooth enough to play.

Feanor_twh wrote on 2025-03-15, 10:50:

dm- wrote on 2025-03-15, 04:44:

What memory is installed on board? samsung bla-bla-bla TC5 ? any 5ns memory is 200mhz capable 6ns memory 166mhz capable […]
Show full quote

What memory is installed on board? samsung bla-bla-bla TC5 ?
any 5ns memory is 200mhz capable
6ns memory 166mhz capable

you can overclock you card according to the memory you have

The attachment WhatsApp Image 2025-03-15 at 11.44.57.jpeg is no longer available

Apparently, 0.7ns. But I didn't find the max supported speed, so I'll look further.

Datasheet says its 0.7ns ...

Max speed 166Mhz

emu34b wrote on 2025-03-15, 05:09:

Ditto on the above. I got one of these before (wish I knew what happened to it) but yeah, *usually* you're a memory overclock away for some extra performance. Mine back then had 6ns memory, I got it to 170 mhz before issues cropped up, I remember. Decent performance increase.

Otherwise, the PCI bus is a likely culprit for the lack of performance. Get an AGP card if you can, but if you can't, I've seen PCI GeForce 6200s for similar prices, at least on USA eBay. GeForce FX and Windows 98 do generally tend to get along better, though.

Of course, the idea is to maintain compatibility with Win98 and older games, while still being able to play games up to DX8. It's an Intel Dot Station, nicknamed "Paquito" in Spain:

It was very popular in its day and is a good gadget, but it only has a PCI bus, and only one.

Ahhh now I see the manchine it makes sense, also that's one very cool looking rig, got a late 70 sci fi look and feel to it.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 10:57:

Datasheet says its 0.7ns ...

Max speed 166Mhz

Does that mean that 166MHz is completely stable and I can go up to 200 without "too much" risk?

Feanor_twh wrote on 2025-03-15, 11:05:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 10:57:

Datasheet says its 0.7ns ...

Max speed 166Mhz

Does that mean that 166MHz is completely stable and I can go up to 200 without "too much" risk?

Thats its max rated speed from the fab, doesnt mean it wont go faster so give it a shot, increase by 5mhz bumps till it starts to artifact and then drop it by 5 and that's your cards max safe speed, you can do this with the core too but its a 5200 so it may not go much higher.

Dont expect a huge uplift . .expect something like 5 - 10% at best.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 11:04:

Ahhh now I see the manchine it makes sense, also that's one very cool looking rig, got a late 70 sci fi look and feel to it.

Initially, it was a Celeron 300 with 64MB RAM and integrated Intel 810 graphics. Performance was pathetic.

Now, with a PIII 750, 256MB (both at 100MHz, chipset limit) and an FX5500, the improvement has been HUGE, but I'm still hoping for a bit more.

As you can see, space is not in my favor

Feanor_twh wrote on 2025-03-15, 11:23:

Initially, it was a Celeron 300 with 64MB RAM and integrated Intel 810 graphics. Performance was pathetic. […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 11:04:

Ahhh now I see the manchine it makes sense, also that's one very cool looking rig, got a late 70 sci fi look and feel to it.

Initially, it was a Celeron 300 with 64MB RAM and integrated Intel 810 graphics. Performance was pathetic.

Now, with a PIII 750, 256MB (both at 100MHz, chipset limit) and an FX5500, the improvement has been HUGE, but I'm still hoping for a bit more.

The attachment WhatsApp Image 2025-03-15 at 12.18.31.jpeg is no longer available

As you can see, space is not in my favor

A SSD would give you an even bigger performance boost, something worth considering since a 2.5" SSD with a SATA to IDE board would produce less heat than the spinning rust factory and be a million times faster.

Yes you would notice it even on a P3 rig, it would feel right snappy and load games a lot faster. Trim support isn't worth worrying about on a retro machine, you wont be using it 24/7 nor will you be filling up the SSD so its on board garbage collection can handle provisioning and empty cells just fine.

Agreed with above, but another thing you can do for a retro machine is a CF card in an IDE adapter. Definitely recommended this for slower P3 and below systems. The advantage of this (besides also increased speed) is that the adapters are cheap (since CF is a superset of ATA, it just needs an adapter ans not a converter) and it being removable media, means you can stick it in a card reader on a modern PC to get data in and out of it conveniently. (Though don't take the card out while your retro pc is running) There's brackets that install the card slot into an unused PCI slot as well.

In my 810 system, I tried a Radeon 9250 64bit, and a Gforce fx 5200 64bit. This is with a P3 900. Both PCI of course.
The Radeon 9250 was quite a bit better in my tests.
Later I also got a Radeon 9000 128 bit which is even better, but this is a long card and I doubt it would fit in that small case.
If you are looking for the best to fit into that case, I would go for a 128 bit radeon 9250.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-15, 11:54:

A SSD would give you an even bigger performance boost, something worth considering since a 2.5" SSD with a SATA to IDE board would produce less heat than the spinning rust factory and be a million times faster.

Yes you would notice it even on a P3 rig, it would feel right snappy and load games a lot faster. Trim support isn't worth worrying about on a retro machine, you wont be using it 24/7 nor will you be filling up the SSD so its on board garbage collection can handle provisioning and empty cells just fine.

I agree. I already have the adapter on the way and a 2.5" SATA SSD waiting to be mounted. The motherboard has a stupid ATA33 limit, but even so the SSD will run more than twice as fast as the HDD.

I've been testing with RivaTuner. I discovered several things:
- The maximum memory speed without artifacts is exactly 346MHz. So I think I'll be fine with 333MHz (166MHz), right?
- There's no noticeable difference between RTCW or Max Payne when changing the GPU and memory settings. Switching between 200-300MHz on the GPU and 200-350MHz on the memory speed results in a difference of 4 or 5 fps

So I'm thinking that the PIII's 100MHz bus or the PC-100 SDRAM is the bottleneck, or the PCI bus, regardless of which GPU I'm going to mount.

Really, both RTCW and Max Payne are playable, the latter even at 1024x768, so I don't think I'm too bad. Being able to play Mafia 1 would be great, but I think I can live without it.